2:12 Runner Ryan Vail Will Do 2nd Marathon in NYC

Vail was sixth in the 10,000 in the Olympic Trials on track in Eugene in 27:52.53; he'd set a personal best of 27:51.07 in the spring. Now 26, Vail was captain of the 2009 NCAA cross Ccountry champion Oklahoma State Cowboys and finished seventh individually in those NCAAs. He won Big 12 titles in cross country, in the 10,000 outdoors and in the 3000 indoors.

Where are you right now and what are you up to?Ryan Vail: I'm in the Czech Republic. My wife is from the Czech Republic, so I'm here with her family at the moment. I'm training right now, getting ready for New York. I was hoping to race a little bit more this summer. I got a little bit sick, though. But I'll be getting ready for the Great North Run in Newcastle. Then I'll be coming back to the United States after that.

What's the training like for you in Prague? Are you with a group or by yourself?RV: There's not much of a training culture here. I'm pretty much on my own. But I'm mostly on my own in Portland as well.

We think of Prague as one of the great old European cities with cobblestone streets and all that. But as a distance runner, that's probably not what you're looking for. RV: YOn the outskirts of the city, there are a lot of nice parks. It's really, really gorgeous, really big. I can easily do a two-and-a-half-hour run, out and back, without crossing my path again.

So would you say the New York City Marathon build-up has already begun in earnest?RV: Oh yeah, absolutely. I started really about four weeks ago. I'm trying to give myself about 14 weeks total.

Before the Olympic Trials in Houston, you were reaching up into the 140-miles-per-week range. Are you trying to do something like that right now?RV: Yeah, I am. I hit 140 a few times for the last go-round. This time, my coach is letting me be a little more aggressive so I got up to 150 so far at one point. But I'm really trying to have more weeks in that 140 range.

You're living in Portland, Oregon but being coached long distance by Dave Smith, your Oklahoma State coach. There are established pro training groups in Portland; can you explain why you've decided to be coached by Dave?RV: I'm from Portland. That's part of the reason for coming back here. I already knew what a great place it was to train. The Nike groups there are kind of exclusive to get into. I believe that would be a possibility for me. But Brooks has treated me so well that I really like the situation I'm in with them.

And I've also PRed under Dave for eight straight years now, so I'm kind of hesitant to change anything as long as the progress keeps continuing. I want to stay with the same slow progression and again, Portland's a great city to train in.

In talking about what you'd want to do differently in this marathon training cycle, you mentioned wanting more longer intervals. Have you started doing that already?RV: Yeah, I have. Dave definitely wrote some of those into my workouts, not longer for each interval but more of them. We were doing in the 7- to 8-mile range, and now we're getting more into the 9- to 12-mile range. He's let me amp up a few miles per workout. We've done ten times a mile. We've done 4-mile/3-mile/2-mile. We've done five times 2K.

Did you perceive for a need for this based on what happened in your debut marathon in January?RV: I think it was more talking to other marathoners, seeing what they were doing. We took the training pretty conservatively going into my first marathon, which is a good way to approach it. Even while I was going through that preparation for Houston, I was talking to other athletes and I knew that they were doing some some longer stuff, and so I was thinking "For my next go-round, I'm going to try and push the envelope a little bit more." It gave me a lot of confidence being able to stay healthy leading up to 140 miles a week last time, so I want to just keep edging that up.

At the Olympic Trials, did feel you were able to get through the entire 26.2 miles well, or were you tiring towards the end?RV: I was tiring towards the end. I definitely ran the second half slower, but I think my last mile was still 5:03 or 5:04, so I held on pretty well compared to a lot of guys in that race. I definitely ran it conservatively, which was the plan going in. So I think that pushing that envelope earlier on in the marathon is going to really be the true test, [to see if] I can hold on and not fall apart in that last 10K. I didn't fall apart, definitely, in Houston, but running 2:12:40 is a lot different than trying to run 2:10:40.

Do you think this fall in New York that you can run the first half harder?RV: Yeah. I know it's a tougher course but in the past, I've always done really well with hills. I've always done well with tough courses. I definitely think I have a big PR in me, even at New York. I think I can go under 2:12 there. In order to do that, I need to push the first half a little bit more, and also [start faster] to have people to run with.

You ran under 28:00 for 10,000 meters on the track twice this year. The fact that you're doing this marathon doesn't mean you're abandoning the track, does it?RV: I think I still have another year or two left on the track. I'm hoping that New York will just help when the winter and spring comes around because of this huge base I'm getting right now. I'm hoping that will benefit my 10K next year.

Would one of the upcoming goals be to make it to Moscow for the world championships in the 10,000?RV: Absolutely. I made another improvement in the 10K this year. I think I'm one step away from being in the conversation about being in the top three in the U.S. championships.

One of the things we used to hear frequently from Dave Smith at Oklahoma State was that on a very talented team, everyone was looking to you for leadership, which he felt you provided. Now that you're not part of a team, is the energy that goes toward trying to provide that leadership and extending yourself out to teammates something that you miss, and is there another way to channel that?RV: It's definitely something that I miss. It's something that helped me every day, having those other guys to train with. It's hard to replace. I try to do it with world cross country and things like that, but there's no replacement for having that kind of group we had to wake up every day and go out and train with. Especially getting the young guys every year and always having a new group to lead; I don't think there's any way to replace that. I think I can just look back with nostalgia on that and just put the extra energy into the longer marathon training.

Does that kind of thing make you think that in the future, you might want to be a coach?RV: That's definitely a possibility in my future. I've helped out at the University of Portland a little bit as time allowed. I could channel that energy into coaching. I think that would work well. Dave [Smith] told me the same thing. I think there would be always be the opportunity for me to go back [to Oklahoma State] as well.

Let me ask about one of your former teammates. German Fernandez is running well again. Should we still think of him as the guy with unlimited potential that he appeared to be early in his Oklahoma State career?RV: Oh, absolutely. He battled so much with his injury problems for so long. Even this track season, he was only training about six weeks going into the Olympic Trials and got down to 3:37 [for 1500 meters] almost immediately. He got down to 3:34, a three-second PR, with a very short season. I really think if he can stay healthy, there's no reason to think he's not going to break 13:00 next year in the 5K. If he can stay healthy and stay focused, he's going to right back on the scene where everyone thought he was going to be.